Libya uprising continues – Monday 28 February as it happened

• UK does not rule out use of force against Libya
• Western leaders discuss no-fly zone
• Benghazi rebels preparing for assault on Tripoli
• Clinton calls for suspension from UN human rights council
• Gaddafi insists: "My people love me. They would die for me."
• Are you in Libya or have a comment on the situation there? Contact
ben.quinn@guardian.co.uk or
@BenQuinn75

A supporter holds a picture of Muammar Gaddafi in Sabratha, 75 km (46.6 miles) west of Tripoli. This photograph was taken on a government guided tour of the area. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters

5.47pm: Good evening. In a fast-moving day of international diplomacy:

• David Cameron said the UK did not rule out the use of force against Muammar Gaddafi (see 4.21pm). The British prime minister also said he had asked colleagues to work on plans for a no-fly zone. The White House also said allies were in talks about this (see 4.25pm). Cameron said the UK would consider arming the Libyan opposition. The US military is repositioning naval and air forces around Libya, a Pentagon official said, describing this as "planning and preparing" for missions, "whether humanitarian or otherwise". Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, would not discuss military options but said that the US would consider a range of responses against Gaddafi if he continued to attack his own people.

• The White House suggested Muammar Gaddafi might go into exile (see 4.25pm). Clinton and Cameron called on Gaddafi to quit, as did Qatar's prime minister.

• In Benghazi, the stronghold of the rebels which is 600 miles from Tripoli, military defectors are preparing for a potential assault on the capital, which remains held by Gaddafi – but such an assault could take a weeks to come to fruition (see 3.55pm). In Tripoli, shots were fired at an anti-Gaddafi demonstration. Fighting was also reported between Gaddafi loyalists and rebels in Misrata, 125 miles east of Tripoli, while in Zawiyah, only 30 miles away, pro- and anti-government forces were "locked in a standoff", Associated Press reported. Clinton said the US was sending assistance teams to Libya's borders with Egypt and Algeria to help refugees. France is sending two planes with humanitarian aid, including medicine and doctors, to Benghazi – the first direct western aid to the uprising.

• Clinton called for Libya to be suspended from the UN human rights council (see 2.33pm). The European Union has agreed sanctions against the Gaddafi regime. The measures include an arms embargo, asset freeze and visa ban. The sanctions also include measures to ban the sale of any equipment that might be used for repression by Gaddafi. The UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said if change in the Middle East can happen peacefully, it will be the greatest advance in world peace since the end of the cold war.

6.35pm: Muammar Gaddafi has claimed in an interview with a number of media organisations that the the people of Libya love him and has refused to acknowledge that any protests against his regime are taking place in Tripoli.

The Libyan leader, who spoke to journalists, the BBC, ABC and The Sunday Times, reiterated claims that cannot step down because he is not a president or king.

"My people love me. They would die for me," he said, blaming al-Qaida for encouraging young people to seize arms from military installations.

Gaddafi also hit out at western governments, adding: "I'm surprised that we have an alliance with the west to fight al Qaeda, and now that we are fighting terrorists they have abandoned us. Perhaps they want to occupy Libya."

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen, who also interviewed Gaddafi, said that he appeared relaxed as he talked in a restaurant overlooking the port in Tripoli, before leaving at high speed in a motorcade.

Gaddafi laughed at the suggestion he would leave the country he has ruled for 42 years and said he felt betrayed by leaders who had urged him to leave. Speaking to the BBC's Six O'Clock news, Bowen wondered to what extent Gaddafi was in touch with what was really happening on the ground in Libya.

Gaddafi interview by ABC Photograph: ABC

7.04pm: Some more lines have come out from that interview (left) with Muammar Gaddafi.

He called Barack Obama is "a good man", but added that the US president appeared to be misinformed about the situation in Libya.

"The statements I have heard from him must have come from someone else," Gaddafi said. "America is not the international police of the world," he added.

7.19pm: The US appears to be intensifying efforts now to turn the screws on Gaddafi regime.

In the last hour the US Treasury has said that $30bn in Libyan assets have been blocked.

The US military has meanwhile said that naval ships are being moved closer to Libya in case they are needed, although commentators are saying that this does not necessarily mean that military action is imminent.

7.43pm: As well as naval forces, the Pentagon has also said that planes are being repositioned closer to Libya.

It was not immediately clear what ships the US Navy has in the Mediterranean but it does have two aircraft carriers stationed further to the east.

But while a ground invasion or air strikes are still considered unlikely, could the US be preparing to enforce a no-fly zone?

On the basis of this recent file from Reuters, pro-Gaddafi forces certainly still seem to pose a threat to the uprising on the ground:

Military aircraft circled a town in rebel-held eastern Libya on Monday, a security official said, adding that an earlier report they bombed an arms dump was incorrect.

"Two military aircraft came to Djabiya, circled and returned," said Fathi Abidy, a member of the security council set up by the temporary administration in Libya's main eastern city Benghazi.

"A different source told me earlier there had been an attack," he told Reuters, after he had earlier reported that an arms dump had been hit but no one was hurt.

Another senior security source had also confirmed that an arms dump was hit, but could not be reached again to comment on the revised report suggesting no attack took place.

8.02pm: He appears to be in denial about the extent of the uprising against him but Muammar Gaddafi's reasonably fluent command of English in this BBC clip from today's interview might come as a surprise to some.

"You don't understand the system here," he said, wagging a finger as a translator helped with a Libyan translation of some of the questions from the interview (see 6.35pm)."The world don't [sic] understand the system here."

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice. Photograph: AP

8.32pm: Muammar Gaddafi demonstrated today that he was "delusional", according to Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, who is taking a press conference at the White House.

"When he can laugh talking to international journalists, when he is slaughtering his own people, only underscores how unfit he is to lead," she said, referring to his interview with international news organisations today.

Rice also deflected questions about why it took until this week for the US administration to call for Gaddafi to go, saying: "We have taken very strong and very swift actions."

She added that the UN was dealing with a request the Gaddafi regime to the UN secretary general to withdraw recognition of Libya's diplomats at the UN who called for measures to be taken against him at the weekend.

However, she said that it was "too soon" to say how issues such as credentials at the UN, or even recognition of a new Libyan government based in the east of the country, would be dealt with.

"Unless and until there is an obvious alternative government it's hard to take from one and give to another because there is not a clear other to whom recognition can be given," she said.

9.42pm: France and Britain have called for an emergency summit of the European Council, which consists of the EU's heads of state, to discuss events in Libya.

In London, Downing Street said that the prime minister, David Cameron, had spoken to the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, by telephone tonight. They agreed that both countries should work "on the range of possible options for increasing pressure on the [Libyan] regime".

Those options are understood to include establishing a no-fly zone over Libya, an idea which the US is also exploring, according to comments earlier by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

9.56pm: As political leaders in Europe and the US begin to crank up the push for more concrete action against the Gaddafi regime, including a possible no-fly zone, the Guardian's Simon Tisdall strikes a note of caution:

Criticised for reacting too slowly to the Libyan crisis, Britain and its allies now risk a dangerous, ill-thought out over-reaction in raising the prospect of direct western military intervention.

If any lesson has been learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that while it is very easy to get into a war in the Middle East, it is difficult to control events once engaged, and harder still to find a way out.

He writes of how those preparing for the push onwards towards Tripoli expect the road to be a bloody one, but are beginning to countenance outside assistance:

One option that rebel leaders are now being forced to consider is to accept international help to oust Gaddafi.

Such a move could potentially jeopardise their claim to have launched the revolution with nationalistic aims and add weight to the regime's claims that they are fighting a foreign-led coup.

10.36pm: The US Treasury's blocking of $30bn worth of Libya assets is the largest ever such action undertaken by Washington, officials have said.

My colleague Dominic Rush reports from New York that the funds belonged to the Central Bank of Libya and the Libya Investment Authority, a "sovereign wealth fund" that invests in foreign assets.

He adds that David Cohen, the US Treasury's acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, has also said further sanctions could be on the way.

Cohen also said that the US believes "there are substantial Libyan state-owned assets in Europe and that these assets are controlled by Colonel Gaddafi and his children".

11.31pm: In a recap of developments over the course of a day when international pressure on the Libyan government intensified:

• David Cameron said the UK did not rule out the use of force against Muammar Gaddafi. The British prime minister, who joined France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in calling for an emergency summit of EU leaders, also said he had asked colleagues to work on plans for a no-fly zone. The White House said allies were in talks about this.

• Gaddafi insisted that the Libyan people loved him and used an interview with a number of international news organisations to insist that there were no demonstrations on the streets against his regime. Vowing to survive the uprising, he blamed al-Qaida for encouraging young people to seize military arms and accused Western countries of abandoning his government in its fight against "terrorists".

• Forces loyal to the Libyan leader fought rebels holding the two cities closest to the capital and his warplanes bombed an ammunition depot in the east. His troops also reportedly retook control of western border crossings with Tunisia that had fallen under opposition control. Elsewhere, regime forces moved to tighten their ring around two opposition-controlled cities closest to the capital Tripoli Zawiya and Misrata.

• The US military is repositioning naval and air forces around Libya, a Pentagon official said, describing this as "planning and preparing" for missions, "whether humanitarian or otherwise". Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, would not discuss military options but said that the US would consider a range of responses against Gaddafi if he continued to attack his own people.

• Joining other states in putting a financial squeeze on the Gaddafi regime, the US Treasury said $30 billion in Libyan assets have been frozen since President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Libya last week. Europe also outlined fresh sanctions, including travel bans, an asset freeze against senior Libyan officials and an arms embargo. Switzerland and Britain already have frozen Libyan assets.